


Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow

by linaerys



Category: Heroes - Fandom
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-05-13
Updated: 2007-05-13
Packaged: 2017-10-21 07:56:29
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,063
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/222799
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/linaerys/pseuds/linaerys
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the events in 1.19, “.07%,” Nathan wonders what comes next.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow

Peter’s body had been not cool but cooling. Nathan wondered why he remembered that, later. He wondered all kinds of morbid things, like how long Claire could have left that shard of glass in Peter’s head before the damage—the death—would be permanent.

He wondered if he could touch Peter again without feeling that chill on his skin.

Peter cleaned up just fine, put on some old clothes, and borrowed some of Nathan’s hair gel to slick his hair back up off his face, but there was something different about him now, as if dying had stripped the last vestiges of childhood from him.

Nathan sat in the office he kept here in his mother’s house and turned the shard of glass over in his hands. It was a strange and bloody talisman to keep, but Nathan couldn’t let go of it, not with Peter out of his sight again, talking with Claire and their mother.

“She’s staying,” said Peter, when he came back upstairs into Nathan’s office. Nathan turned around in the office chair. He hadn’t bothered to turn on the light when the sun set and now Peter was silhouetted in the doorway.

“They are,” said Nathan, not making it a question. So this was how it was now. Peter’s turn to hold the reins. “Did Ma . . .?”

“She hasn’t said anything but she . . .” Peter crossed the room to Nathan’s desk and stood opposite him. “She listened to me. She trusts my judgment, Nathan.”

Nathan looked away, down at the glass in his hands. If he held it any tighter, it would break his skin, and he wouldn’t heal, except the normal way, one slow day, one slowly knitting cell, at a time. _If Ma agreed to this_. . . then she was humoring Peter, giving him a little gift for still being alive. Nathan could do the same, this once, if, “She’ll stay out of the way until the election?” asked Nathan, without looking up.

“Of course,” said Peter. “But she’s not leaving.”

 _Peter will manage it_ , a strange thought. Nathan only had to let Linderman pull the strings until Election Day, and then? Peter’s visions, Isaac’s visions, a brave new world and what cost? Could he measure the cost of something that couldn’t be prevented?

“Do you think you can stop it?” Nathan asked. He didn’t want to know, but he needed to. He looked up at Peter. He could do this; get the control back by reminding Peter where he is weak. Peter stood with his arms crossed, back straight and jaw set stubbornly.

Nathan remembered when Peter became stronger than him, one summer when Peter slipped into his prime and long nights and fast food toppled Nathan from his. Peter pinned Nathan on his back when they wrestled, one arm over Nathan’s windpipe. He grinned, fierce with triumph. “Guess you win,” said Nathan.

Peter rolled off of him. “Nah,” he said. “You could always beat me—strength doesn’t matter. You’re the older brother, it’s your job to win.” And Nathan did, the next time; hours at the gym saw to that.

Expectations. Peter still expected him to win, to take control, to make it all right, so maybe he still could. It was an illusory sort of power, but when had his power ever been anything else?

“I’m getting better at controlling it,” said Peter, and now it was his turn to look away.

“Better?” asked Nathan. “How much better?”

Peter looked back toward him and his eyes were hard again, still full of that flint from his ordeal. “I flew. On my own,” he said. His voice had a drop of wonder in it, the note that had been missing since he came back, and Nathan looked at him tenderly, waiting for the rest, waiting for Peter to turn to him again. “I saved—someone,” he added.

That shouldn’t have hurt. Nathan hadn’t even realized he cared that it took him to allow Peter to fly. One more way Peter didn’t need him.

“I’m happy for you,” Nathan said. He placed the blood spattered glass down on his desk. He saw Peter’s eyes follow his hands’ movements. “Do you want this?” Nathan asked.

Peter flinched. “No,” he said. His was voice thick, but he pitched it low to keep it from showing—something else he’d learned from Nathan. “You keep it.”

“Do you think you can stop the explosion?” asked Nathan, more forcefully this time.

Peter didn’t answer for a moment. He reached out to touch the glass. “If I didn’t,” he said, “I would ask you to put that back in my head and leave it there.” He drew his hand away and Nathan saw a cut on his fingertip well up with blood and then close as if it had never been.

“I wouldn’t—,” said Nathan.

Peter turned away. “Or I’d do it myself,” he said. A jar of pens and a stapler rose up off of Nathan’s desk, and Nathan felt a tugging at the glass in his hands. “You couldn’t stop me.”

“Don’t,” said Nathan, putting his hand on Peter’s shoulder. Peter was solid and warm and so alive Nathan imagined he could feel the blood running under his skin, all those strange molecules that wanted to heal, wanted to fly. All that infinite potential. “I couldn’t . . .” he squeezed Peter’s shoulder tighter.

Peter reached up to Nathan’s face and put his hand along Nathan’s cheek. “I know,” he said. “But there are bigger things than us.”

“What do you think Ma has to do with this?” asked Nathan after they stood like that for a moment. Maybe she told Peter something, this new Peter, refined and strong, maybe she trusted him with the truth she never shared with Nathan. She had always loved Peter more, but trusted him less, until now.

Peter smiled then, his old smile, warm and a little secretive, but nothing dangerous in it. “When she said that, I thought for a second . . .”

“I did too,” said Nathan, and shoved any analysis of how strange it was that _this_ was the safer topic to the back of his mind. “But that’s over,” he said, holding Peter’s gaze with his own.

Peter must have heard the questioning note in Nathan’s voice, because his lips quirked slightly, just a ghost of a grin, and he said, “Whatever you say.”

“Do you think she knows?”

Peter shrugged. “There’s nothing to know now, is there?”

Nathan opened his mouth to say something, something that would dare Peter to prove him wrong, to make the first step across the distance between them, as he always did—the one thing Peter could be depended upon for, but they heard a knock on the office door and Mrs. Petrelli saying from beyond it, “Come have a drink before dinner,” as if this were any normal day with the family together.

“Family dinner,” said Peter with an ironic smile. He opened the door and they followed her downstairs.

Claire was sitting in the living room on one of the Victorian sofas, her ankles crossed and tucked back in an unmistakably nervous pose. Mrs. Petrelli sat down next to her, and Nathan saw Claire draw slightly away from her. “You agreed to this ridiculous . . . plan, Nathan?” asked Mrs. Petrelli acidly when he and Peter sat down.

Nathan glanced at Peter, who looked slightly panicked for a moment, and then gave Nathan a pleading look. “Peter thinks it’s better if she—,” he turned toward Claire, “—if you’re here. With us.” Mrs. Petrelli glanced heavenward; her patience was nearing its limit. “He knows more about this than I do,” Nathan said. He swallowed; ceding that much authority was difficult, but Peter acknowledged the gift with a nod of his head.

“Claire needs to be here, Mom,” said Peter.

Mrs. Petrelli sighed. “You don’t know the first thing about it, Peter.” She looked at him hard, and Nathan saw the first cracks in this new Peter. Peter hadn’t gone up against their mother’s crushing will as often as Nathan had, and it showed.

“Well Mom, you going to tell us?” asked Peter, defiant, a beat too late. Mrs. Petrelli pursed her lips and looked at Peter coldly, a picture of disdain. Nathan watched Peter to see how he would react to this—she’d always been so warm to Peter before, this must be a shock to him. Claire looked back and forth between Peter and his mother, and turned her tumbler of what Nathan hoped was water between her hands.

“Heidi is coming back in a few days,” said Nathan, voice full of careful regret.

“Your wife,” said Claire, sounding too old for her years.

“Yes,” said Nathan, leaving the suggestion unspoken in the air, that maybe it would be better for Claire to leave. Not because Nathan wanted her to, but because of the situation. Peter glared at Nathan and he shrugged.

“It’s settled, then,” said Mrs. Petrelli. The look she shot Nathan wasn’t grateful, but Nathan hadn’t expected that. She smiled thinly at Claire. “You want to be normal, right, Claire?” Peter snorted at that, but didn’t say anything. “I can give you a better chance of that.” She gave Nathan and Peter a reproachful look that she divided evenly between them. “Slightly better,” she amended.

***

“I thought you were going to help me,” said Peter after dinner. He followed Nathan into the small sitting room outside the bedroom where Nathan slept when he stayed in the Gramercy Park house.

Nathan contemplated some _Art of War_ platitude about only winning the ground you can keep, but decided to leave it unspoken. He reached up and undid his tie and the top button of his shirt.

“You could be nicer to her,” Peter added.

“She has a family, Pete, and it’s not us. We’re just—we’re as dangerous to her as she is to us.” And he didn’t add the other reason, that their family didn’t need any more liabilities, that between himself and Peter, they had that covered.

“She’s strong,” said Peter. He put his hand up to the back of his neck. “I know how strong.”

“And I’m grateful for that,” said Nathan. Nathan reached out to touch Peter, but pulled back, curving his hand over Peter’s shoulder, a millimeter away from touching him, tracing his shape into the air in case—in case he disappeared.

“If this destiny thing is for real,” said Nathan, voice heavy with irony, “then she’ll be here for what she—for whatever happens.”

“It’s not passive like that.”

“You don’t understand this any better than I do.”

“At least I know we have to _do_ something. Nathan . . .” He put his hands on both of Nathan’s shoulders, and stared hard at Nathan, but he wasn’t as good at this dominant posturing as he wanted to be, and something else slipped in underneath. He squeezed Nathan’s shoulder, and became more the Peter Nathan remembered, the one who also knew how to get what he wanted but used charm instead of strength of will.

“I never should have pushed you away,” said Nathan, gentle now. Two could play this game, and it was a game he’d been missing.

Peter wasn’t quite ready to give up his newfound strength. “I understand,” said Peter, pitching his voice low. “The election, it made sense.”

“If you’d . . . .” Nathan couldn’t stop coming back to it, those long hours on the plane from Las Vegas, when he’d been scared to fly with his body alone, worried that with Peter gone, whatever force kept him in the air would smash him to earth. Maybe that wouldn’t have been so bad, but he had to see Peter first, to say goodbye.

“I didn’t, Nathan.” He put his hand on top of Nathan’s where it still lay on his arm. “I’m more alive than I’ve ever been.” He smiled, his flirty, former Peter smile.

“Yes,” said Nathan.

Peter looked at him and Nathan realizes that as baffled as he was by this new Peter, Peter was just as confused by him. “You’re not going to say we shouldn’t?” asked Peter, looking sidelong at Nathan.

“The world’s ending,” said Nathan with a slight smile.

“New York, anyway,” said Peter.

“The only part that matters,” said Nathan, echoing their old joke from when Nathan was in the Navy, and Peter was too young to understand.

Peter looked at him sharply then, as if Nathan were seriously considering throwing the rest of the world away to save New York, as if that were a choice. “Yeah, right,” he said. He tipped his head to one side, and smiled gently.

Peter put his hand up to Nathan’s forehead, brushed his thumb along the wrinkle lines there, and then moved it around the side of Nathan’s face.

“Still,” said Nathan, a question without the inflection on it. He didn’t want to have to ask.

“Always,” said Peter, and even though this was a new Peter, a strange Peter back from the dead, and bringing who-knew-what with him, his eyes said he was still Nathan’s Peter, too.

“I’ve missed . . .” said Nathan. He reached out to touch Peter, steeling himself for something, for Peter to go invisible, or for his fingers to sink through Peter’s flesh as if he were a ghost, but Peter was there, feeling warm, and more solid than Nathan felt to himself.

It’s awkward to do this so deliberately—past times were the result of an irresistible pull, when he couldn’t stay away from Peter any more and knocked on his door, knowing how it would be, knowing that the air between them couldn’t keep them apart for long, but now he put his hand to Peter’s face slowly, and counted the seconds as Peter leaned in to him, and they kissed, just a press of lips together, not sensual, just reassuring— _yes, you’re here_.

At least they could have this, when the world was falling apart, when their own mother had become a stranger, it’s the one thing to cling to. Peter kissed him harder, desperately, and Nathan clung to his shoulders. Peter pulled him while Nathan pushed, and they ended up on the bed with Nathan on top, undoing Peter’s belt with practiced hands, like it had been a few days instead of six months. His fingers remembered how this worked, where to touch Peter to make him gasp; it was familiar like nothing else had been since Nathan first flew.

“Don’t leave me,” said Nathan, barely more than a murmur, as he kissed Peter’s neck, and wrapped his hand around Peter’s cock.

“I can’t,” said Peter, the idea still new and exciting to him, “I can’t die. I can heal anything.” And it was true, kisses that would usually leave bruises on Peter’s pale skin left him unmarked now, and he seemed stronger when he rolled Nathan onto his back, and pinned him there with the strength of his arms and him mind.

“I want you inside me,” said Peter, his voice going low and serious. Unspoken where once Peter would have voiced it: it’s been too long. Too long, and this was too urgent to wait. Peter pulled Nathan’s pants down and Nathan sat up and unbuttoned his shirt, throwing it on the floor. Peter was already hard when he took his boxers off. Peter gave himself a couple of long strokes and then reached over to the bedside drawer, pulled out some lube and slicked Nathan’s cock with it, then used his own fingers to make himself open.

Peter gave Nathan a few more tugs and when he was fully hard, positioned himself on it and sank down until Nathan was fully inside him. “Doesn’t that . . .?” _Hurt_ Nathan wanted to ask, and he wondered just how much practice Peter has been getting without him.

“Not for long,” says Peter, his voice still pitched low, and then Nathan didn’t care anymore—Peter was a law, a force of nature now, he could run this fuck however he wanted. Peter felt tight and hard around Nathan, uncompromising, and Nathan was nothing more than a passenger in his own body as Peter rode Nathan’s cock to his own orgasm, pulling Nathan helplessly along with him.

Nathan felt like he was missing something when Peter climbed off of him—they used to connect more than this, or maybe it was just that Nathan used to feel like he was in control. Maybe it had been an illusion then too, but he’d decided the when, the where, the how. Nathan had pressed Peter up against the counters in his apartment, made Peter wait and beg for it, traced his mouth when it hung open with need, but this time it had been Peter’s show, with Nathan powerless beneath him.

Nathan went to shower after Peter rolled away from him and when he came back to the bed, Peter had fallen asleep. Nathan lay down next to him and watched his chest rise and fall in the cold, blue light coming in around the Venetian blinds. _He’s alive_ , Nathan reminded himself again. He touched Peter’s shoulder, but Peter continued sleeping. Peter’s skin felt cool and Nathan pulled the blanket up over him.

Nathan thought he wouldn’t sleep—he certainly couldn’t go to another bed, he couldn’t leave Peter alone, not now, not tonight, but eventually the draining intensity of the day left him yawning and blinking his eyes, and he fell asleep on his side, listening to Peter’s quiet breathing.

Nathan woke later, 2:00 AM by the beside clock, the space next to him empty. “Peter,” he said into the dark, before considering: Peter would have found his own bed during the night, who knew what their mother knew, and there was no point in being obvious. He wanted Peter back, next to him, to do it right this time, to make Peter look into his eyes when they fucked, to make Peter his again. Something more, so they could feel close again, so Nathan could put the image of Peter’s dead eyes out of his mind.

“I’m here,” said Peter, appearing from invisibility at the window. Nathan heard a car drive past on the street, but inside the house, the air was heavy with silence.

“Did you mean it?” Peter asked. The edges of the windows were rimmed with frost, and Peter skin took on a bluish tinge from the fluorescent streetlights.

“Mean what?” asked Nathan gently. He wanted to ask Peter to come back to bed, but how much could he afford to give up now, with Peter moving so far beyond him?

“You know, that you wouldn’t know who you were without me?”

“I did,” said Nathan, but he wouldn’t elaborate, wouldn’t make himself vulnerable again like that.

Peter nodded tightly, then looked out the window again, and put his hand up to the glass, his fingertips melting circles into the frost. “Cold night,” he said, and shivered.

He came back to the bed and snuggled his back up to Nathan. His skin was cold, so cold that Nathan shivered, both from the sensation and from the memory. “It hurt,” said Peter. “Like my whole body had fallen asleep.” Peter rubbed his hands along his arms until Nathan took over for him, rubbing warmth back into him. Nathan kissed the back of Peter’s neck, where his dark, too-long hair lay against it.

“You’re alive,” said Nathan, this time to convince both of them.

“I’m sorry,” said Peter. Sorry for what, Nathan didn’t know, sorry for dying, for almost leaving him, sorry for what was to come. It didn’t matter. Peter turned to face Nathan, to kiss him, for reassurance, for warmth. Nathan kissed Peter more urgently and ran his hands over Peter’s back, trying to will warmth back into it. Peter pressed his chest against Nathan’s, and the contact alone was enough to make Nathan get hard again.

He kissed Peter automatically now, and rubbed his hand along the outside of Peter’s boxers, feeling the heat from their bodies warm the air between them, and he wondered if this would be the last time. If Peter ever learned that Nathan knew who was planning the explosion, that there might be something Nathan could have done, and didn’t, there would be no forgiveness, no punch in the mouth to make it all better.

“I want to try . . .” said Nathan, before he had a chance to overthink it. He tipped his head to one side, and looked into Peter’s eyes, which were huge and black in the semi-darkness. “You know.” Nathan nodded slightly as Peter’s widened with surprise.

“Are you sure?” asked Peter, incredulous.

“End of the world,” said Nathan, half sarcastically. He frowned. _Don’t make me say it._.

“Okay,” said Peter slowly.

It was pleasant, and more than pleasant when Peter burrowed under the blankets and started sucking on him. Soon it Nathan was warm enough that he pushed the blankets off, and shivered at the cold air cooling the bites that Peter left on his chest, contrasted with the hot embrace of Peter’s mouth. He felt close to coming when Peter pushed a wet finger inside him; Peter’s finger there intensified everything, every stroke of his tongue, every graze of his teeth felt magnified.

Peter stopped a dozen strokes before Nathan would have come, and let Nathan back off from the edge. He wore an expression of concentration, of concern, that was as alluring as his expressions of abandon had ever been.

It hurt when Peter started to push into him; that Nathan was prepared for, but he wasn’t prepared for the sensation he couldn’t even identify, too intense to call either pleasure or pain and too unpredictable. He told Peter to slow, and Peter did, but that didn’t help—Nathan felt on edge, as if some movement would take him to a place without control. He could feel the dull discomfort of stretching to let Peter in, but over that he felt too sensitive, like touching partially healed skin—too close to breaking.

 _No wonder Peter liked this_ , Nathan thought; Peter never minded being out of control, not the way Nathan did. He wanted to tell Peter to stop, that he hadn’t imagined it would be like this, he hadn’t imagined this at all, his cock twitching uselessly as Peter moved into him, the feeling of helplessness. Peter curled his fingers around Nathan’s cock and Nathan concentrated on that more familiar sensation. Peter’s fingers were slick and hot when they slid around him, and the feeling edged more toward pleasure as Peter pushed all the way into him.

Then it was all pleasure and he felt like he was too full, ready to burst like an overripe fruit, a voluptuous, welcoming feeling. “Is that okay?” asked Peter.

“Yes,” said Nathan, hardly trusting his voice.

Peter controlled himself expertly, sliding in and out slowly until Nathan wanted beg him for more. He’d never been so careful with Peter, but now Peter was looking at him as if Nathan might break. He pulled Peter’s hips toward him with his hands, not caring if it hurt now, because the pleasure was so much more. Now Peter looked exultant, and if this shattered Nathan, it was worth it to see Peter in this new way, to feel connected like he never had before. Nathan heard sounds that couldn’t be him coming from his throat, and he came hard and without warning, squeezing his eyes shut against sensations that seemed to come from everywhere.

He felt shaky when it was over, his fingers and toes tingling, and so warm he didn’t think if he could ever be cold again. “Did you like it?” Peter asked. Nathan could still feel the aftershocks, the pulsing of Peter’s cock still inside him.

“I don’t know,” said Nathan. Peter pulled out carefully, and Nathan felt like he’d run a marathon, empty and drained, but strangely giddy, too. He took a deep breath and willed his heart-rate to return to normal.

“What happens tomorrow?” asked Peter, now sounding like his old self, uncertain, needing Nathan to point the way.

“Tomorrow, we try to save the world,” said Nathan. He kissed Peter on the forehead, wishing it were that simple, wishing he could believe like Peter did. _Peter’s alive,_ he thought as he fell back asleep, with Peter’s head heavy on his shoulder. _Anything is possible._


End file.
